


Keeps Me Hanging On

by echoist



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-01
Updated: 2012-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoist/pseuds/echoist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne">Renne</a>, who prompted: 'How many heartaches must I stand, before I find the love to let me live again?"</p>
<p>...in which the course of love does not run smooth, and the best things in life really are worth waiting for, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeps Me Hanging On

**Author's Note:**

> I ignored a good deal of series four and five to further my own agenda, but it mostly jives with canon before that point. Go with it. I promise, it ends well.

 

 

It was anything but love at first sight.

From the moment Becker arrived at the ARC, Connor Temple was nothing but a thorn in his side. A worrisome, irritatingly persistent little thorn that managed to be in the absolute wrong place at the worst possible time. And called him 'action man.' Who does that, going around giving people comic book nicknames? _Action Man._

Becker supposed, looking back, that the reality of a career spent chasing down rogue dinosaurs had not yet set in, if he could still be worried about foolish nicknames. 'Terms of endearment,' Connor was wont to correct him, when the hour was late and the room was dark. Endearment, Becker remembered thinking, slightly awed, the first time he'd said it aloud. He'd never had one of those before.

Early on, there'd been that business at the hospital, a hopeless mess from the start and PR disaster if ever he'd seen one. The most ridiculous sort of dinosaurs (were they even proper dinosaurs?) that somehow looked as if a beaver and a turtle had produced a litter and sent them forth, a ragtag army bent on reducing the world to rubble. Horrible little creatures, really. Appallingly cuddly. He couldn't stand the way they squirmed when you picked them up, or the squeaky little noises they made when you patted them on the nose. 'Diictodons,' Connor corrected, patiently, every time Becker called them chihuahuas or guinea pigs or just mispronounced it entirely. Becker knew very well what they were called, but he found the more he got it wrong, the more effort Connor put into ensuring he had it right.

It seemed ages ago, now, but somewhere in the middle of that fiasco, something had begun to turn. It was only for an instant, really, but enough to tickle and itch, a grain of sand beneath his skin. The first time Connor looked up at him, and smiled – _really_ smiled – as if Becker had been in on the joke. He'd smiled as well, quite without meaning to. Then Connor had seemed to remember who he was looking at, and where they both were, and how many wiggly little diamond-toothed herbivores they still had to catch and - the moment fled, on wings.

They'd returned to the ARC, after, and everything had gone to hell. Becker had thought, truly thought, that day might be the worst of his life. He hadn't survived three years on assignment with the SAS to hand out such designations lightly. As many images as he'd like to burn out from his mind, he'd never wanted to see anything less than what he saw that day: Connor Temple, bruised and burned, stumbling out from beneath those ruins. Connor Temple, carrying the fallen.

It was that singular moment, in truth, that Becker felt something turn over in his chest. Something long broken and neglected collapsing in on itself, and noisily. Someone he'd only just begun to see as a person rather than an assignment, gone stoic and capable - and wounded beyond repair - in less time than it took to boil water. There wasn't even time to think about it, barely even time to register the shift. He catalogued it, filed it away under _trouble_ and vowed not to dwell on it. He lifted Cutter out from Connor's arms so that he might be comforted, so that he might give comfort. He'd stood just outside their circle and wondered how the day could have turned so horribly wrong. What he'd _done_ wrong.

There was no fixing it. Not any part of it.

The day moved on, as days always do, no matter what horrors have marked them. Sure, why not a Gigantosaurus on an airstrip? He wasn't certain if that was better or worse than the mammoth on the M25; the general absurdity of his life had begun to register less and less with each shrieking alert in his headset. Becker barely remembered the rest of the day, half out of his mind with a furious need to protect, protect, protect all that remained. He remembered seeing Connor, flat on his back on the tarmac, after rushing off again. Always rushing off, and just out of sight, just out of range. He remembered the way the beating in his chest seemed to stop, watching the creature looming over him. He remembered how it felt to pull Connor into the car, remembered how his arms had wrapped tight around Connor's waist to keep him still, keep him close. He'd never believed in any sort of god, but his lips repeated a silent 'thank you, thank you' all the way back to the hangar.

He remembered the smell of blood in Connor's hair and thinking just how utterly fucked it all was. It wasn't until later, sitting in medical, taking a mental catalog of Connor's bruises and scrapes and considering how each one could have been prevented, if only he'd done his job – it wasn't until that carefully structured moment of panic that Becker realised how utterly fucked _he_ was, as well.

“I still can't believe it worked,” Connor was saying, occasionally wincing at the med tech's ministrations. “And Abby was there to see it. Said she never doubted me,” Connor added, a dopey smile on his face. Abby who had left him with Becker, saying she had somewhere to be. Abby, who hadn't even called to check.

Pain addled and medicated, very possibly concussed, Connor smiled at nothing in particular and Becker smiled back. “Of course it worked, you idiot,” he mumbled, low, so Connor wouldn't hear.

He'd almost got used to it, what passed for routine at a secret government installation. Even with Danny Quinn thrown in the mix, even _reporting_ to Quinn, and hadn't that been a kick in the pants? The baseline level of functional chaos in his daily life never ceased to amaze him. He started to need it, to crave it, when his environment seemed in danger of becoming perilously stable. It was more than his gut aching for adrenaline, for bullets whizzing past his skull and the bone-deep rattle of impact. It was a curious and deeply unsettling need for the unknown, and the unknowable. It was wondering what could go catastrophically wrong, and figuring out how to fix it when it inevitably did. Or rather, how to keep his team safe while _they_ fixed it.

They always did. Even when it cost them everything. Even when they didn't come back.

He'd pulled Connor aside before that last mission, pushed supplies into his hands, told him to be careful. Told him to be safe. Connor had looked at him, then, looked through him and around him the way he looked when he was trying to sort out a particularly difficult puzzle. His fingers slid against Becker's on the supply pack and stayed there an instant too long. It was electric and terrible and Becker knew it showed in his face. He moved his hands roughly to Connor's shoulders, turned him towards the anomaly, pushed him away. “Go,” he'd said. _Come back to me_ , he'd thought.

And when he hadn't – there'd been nothing else to say, and no time left to say it.

Becker realised, too late, how much of his addiction to chaos and disorder had been Connor's influence. Without him, the days began to normalise. A steady stream of rank and file, reporting for duty, answering the call. Setting goals, achieving goals. Never a monkey wrench in the plan, never a brilliant eleventh hour save. It was exactly what he'd been trained to do, and it was intolerable.

He'd thought he would stop breaking down, inch by inch, fists clenched at his side in futile resistance. By the window at night, looking out over the city he would die each day to protect, if that's what it took – or stood in the shower, one rush of falling water erasing the other, as if it had never been. He'd thought it might stop if he could just forget, carry on, lose himself in the routine. In truth, it never stopped, and most days he felt like a tired ghost haunting the same silent halls. Invisible. Empty.

He tendered his resignation the morning after he woke from a painfully vivid dream, calling out their names against the silence.

It was a good try, Becker supposed, but leaving hadn't solved anything. He wasn't the soldier he'd once been, and running private security for wealthy, stuffed-shirt corporate ninnies who couldn't take a piss without assistance just wasn't in his skill set. When Lester had insisted he return to the ARC, some part of him had been eager for the chance. He didn't deserve it, would never deserve to be trusted with another team, and yet his options had grown slim. References from previous clients weren't exactly glowing, or even particularly extant, after telling them what he thought of their lives and, inadvisedly, their choices.

He couldn't help it. He'd hear Connor's voice in his mind, good-natured mockery in long vowels and half-swallowed syllables and all too often, it bore repeating. Angel on his shoulder or devil, Becker never could decide. He missed Connor terribly. Missed Abby and Danny as well, for certain, and Sarah – Sarah.

But Connor had somehow woven himself into Becker's daily life, into the ebb and flow of what kept him alive. What _made_ him alive. Without Connor, there were pieces of himself missing that he only knew by their absence, and nothing would ever fit where they belonged. He supposed it was too late now to call it by name, call it what it deserved. So he'd returned, picked up the adrenaline rush where he'd left off, and lived from crisis to crisis. It solved nothing but the most basic of needs. He hadn't expected it to.

Becker didn't believe it, when the call first came in, just thought it a particularly vicious prank. He rushed to the scene, anyway, heedless of the traffic laws he might be breaking and walked slowly, carefully towards the circle of agents, their weapons pointed down. He had to see for himself, and even then – even then, he couldn't quite believe it was real. These things didn't happen to him, he thought, he didn't deserve to have them happen.

This is why his hands shook when he pulled Connor and Abby up from the ground, this is why he embraced them both with such lonely ferocity. This is how he watched them together, how he accepted that once again, he was outside that singular circuit, and did not falter. Connor Temple was back in the world. All was not right, could never quite be right again, but all was _well_.

In those first few days, everything was brilliant and impossible. The world was too bright, too close, and he was so very afraid it was all going to stop. After what happened with Duncan, Becker was almost _glad_ to see Connor leave the ARC. No matter what sort of job he found out there, it was less likely to get him injured or killed or sent back to a distant past where everything wanted to eat him. If it meant not seeing him every day, well, he'd survived the last year. For certain definitions of 'survival,' anyway. If it meant never seeing him again, if Connor only thought of him as someone he'd once worked with, well. Becker could handle that, too. He'd had survival training, after all.

Connor found Becker in the locker room to tell him the news, his face closed and carefully hopeful. He was lying before he even said a word. “So I guess – I reckon I'll be seeing you, mate. Or I won't, not here anyway, but I hope – I just - “ He closed his eyes and bit his lip.

“Of course you will,” Becker said, his throat tight. Then Connor's arms were around him before Becker had time to think, to step back. To maintain an acceptable distance. The simple fact of Connor's presence overwhelmed him and “You belong here,” Becker said, stupidly, meaning _you belong with me_.

“It's home,” Connor mumbled, still not drawing away. His hair tickled Becker's cheeks. His hands landed on Connor's hips and he panicked, sliding them up to clutch at his arms, his shoulders. He couldn't do anything right, Becker thought, not even this. “It's not fair,” Connor sighed, resting his head against Becker's shoulder. “I missed you, and now I've got to go on missing you.”

Becker was certain he hadn't heard correctly. He pulled away, just far enough to look down at Connor, confusion plain on his face. His hair was in his face, covering his eyes and Becker wanted to reach out, brush it away. He didn't, just kept his hands on Connor's shoulders, friendly, safe.

Connor flushed, and took a step back. “I meant, it's my home. Here. The ARC. I don't know where else to go, I'm not fit to do anything else - “

“You'll be brilliant, wherever you go.” Becker tried to smile, crossing his arms over his chest to keep them from reaching out and pulling Connor back in. He looked at if he wanted the floor to open and swallow him, Connor did, and so Becker pulled on his overshirt, went back to lacing his boots. He hadn't meant anything by it. Couldn't have.

He watched Connor walk out, and felt the ghost creep back in.

Of course, the team won out, and Connor never left at all. Becker tossed the reference he'd written in the shredder, alongside several pages worth of possible jobs and private sector think-tanks he thought Connor might like to consider. As for Connor himself, he was close, ever-present, all smiles and teasing only to go running when Abby called. They never mentioned it, that moment and the way they'd fit like the last piece of a jigsaw come together. Why would they? Becker was content to watch, and watch over, and sometimes, very occasionally, to think about what never was. So long as he could keep them safe.

He watched, too, as Abby slowly came to realise what being back could mean. She'd survived, made it through the worst case scenario, and now everything she thought she'd never have again was suddenly there for the taking. It was too much; it was not enough. Becker watched her struggle, and stood well away. He had no advice to offer that wouldn't be poison to Connor's happiness. Becker wondered when he had become so very adept at waiting.

When the two of them fought, which was often, and public, they circled one another like lions. They needed each other, Connor and Abby, and they always had, but now they couldn't stand each other's company. It was the worst sort of ending, tangled and grappling and messy. In the wake of it, they took two separate paths to avoidance. Connor found reasons to work late, projects that simply couldn't be left. Abby went looking for a key that didn't need to force the lock.

Becker, for his part, kept to his routine. There were always systems that needed inspecting, weapons that needed cleaning and reports to finish at all hours of the night. It was perfectly ordinary, only sometimes Connor ended up in the middle of it. He smiled, watching Connor check the piston on an M4 carbine that wasn't even supposed to be on the premises. Cheeky, and insufferable, and where had he even learned to reassemble a gearbox like that? “It's like I'm your partner in crime,” Connor had whispered, grinning. “I don't suppose I could just – keep one? You know, for protec –“

Becker sighted him down the barrel of a suspiciously new 590 12-gauge, and Connor swallowed. “Yeah, right, didn't think so.”

He remembered finding Connor asleep in the lab one night while making his rounds, overstuffed gym bag shoved beneath his desk. He'd gently shaken Connor awake, smiled at the sleepy, confused look on his face and earned a smile in return. He remembered the way Connor had phrased his answer to the obvious question, carefully, as if touching a bruise.

“Abby,” he'd started, and Becker already knew. “It's just not really working out, is it?”

And maybe it was a horrible idea, the worst of ideas, but Becker decided on it anyway with a strange sort of zen determination. He wasn't about to let Connor stay here, surrounded by a hundred different ways to turn reality inside out in his sleep. In the end, Becker all but had to order Connor to grab his things and come along home. “I couldn't do that,” he'd protested. “I'll only cause trouble. I'm a terrible house guest, really, you've no idea. Lester told me once I was worse than Sid and Nancy put together and that's just -”

“Trouble's your middle name, Connor,” Becker had teased, ruffling his hair. “At some point I got used to it.” He did not say _I'm entirely fluent in trouble_ , nor did he offer to let Connor wreck every item he owned, if the idea suited him. Becker's possessions were, for the most part, hardly used and disappointingly intact. They could use with some breaking in.

“It's not much,” he apologised, finding the right number in a line of identical doorways and jiggling the handle until it gave. “I'm just – I'm not here very often.” He watched Connor take in the whitewashed cinder block, the lack of photographs. The stock set of matching furniture whose lines declaimed its warehouse origins, arranged precisely like a weekly advert. The kitchen, pristine. The table, set for one.

“Cozy,” Connor had declared and thrown his bag on the sofa, heading immediately for the pantry. He rummaged about unsuccessfully until Becker retrieved a pair of beers from the fridge and popped the caps on the door handle. “Show off,” Connor heckled, taking a bottle.

Later, Becker would remember the way Connor had stood in the doorway to his balcony that night, backlit by a dim, flickering lamp he'd been meaning to fix. He leaned against the frame and just looked at him, really looked, the way no one ever did. Becker never would have thought he'd be the one to glance away first. Of all people, he thought, surely Connor could decrypt the cypher in the lines beside his eyes, the streaks of gray that threaded through his hair. The year had left its marks on Connor in turn, he knew: a rough quickness to his movements, the way he lifted his chin when he spoke.

“I know you, Becker,” Connor observed, “and there's nothing of you in here. Not even a bit.” He tilted his head slightly to one side, worrying his lower lip. “I'm not trying to be ungrateful or anything, you know - the couch is well comfy.” Becker could see him fidgeting out the corner of his eye. “Only, if you're not here, then – where are you?”

Becker started to look up, and aborted the movement, shaking his head slightly instead. He opened his mouth halfway and then closed it, spreading his hands out across the worktop. The laminate pattern was hideous and hypnotic and right now it made him want to retch. This wasn't where the night was supposed to go. He hadn't had a plan, exactly, nothing beyond giving Connor a proper place to sleep and actually getting some rest himself. Now none of that was happening at all. Instead, his half-mad, spur of the moment ideas were being usurped by uncomfortable questions and worst of all, he'd left himself nowhere to hide.

“I'm right -” he looked up to say, interrupted by Connor's swift, silent progress across the room. “Here,” he finished, awkwardly, drawing in a deep breath between. Connor was standing much closer than before, much closer than he should have been and then his hand slid across the counter, covering Becker's fingers with his own.

Becker stopped breathing, just for a moment. Connor worked his fingers between Becker's hand and the laminate, lifting it up and pressing it against his chest. “Try saying that again,” he asked.

“I'm right here,” Becker repeated, and Connor's hand closed tightly around his, as if he meant to keep it. His chest was warm, and solid, and Becker could feel his heart beating, slow and easy.

“I've got you safe, you know. In here.” Connor's cheeks turned slowly red, but he didn't stop speaking. “That whole year, even before that, really, you've always been – so, if you just trust me -”

“I trust you,” Becker interrupted. “Completely.” Connor nodded, his eyes sliding shut, and that was it. Becker was finished with waiting. He moved to lean in, to catch Connor's lips and tell him everything, everything he couldn't say with words. Connor chose that moment to walk backwards towards the open bedroom door, tugging Becker along by his hand, still tangled up in his grasp. “Connor,” Becker started, a little hoarse and extremely startled. “I'm not sure that's the best idea,” and Connor managed to look properly apologetic.

“I'm sorry, sorry, god, I just – I wreck everything, don't I?”

“Connor, of course you don't.” Becker managed to pull him back a half step closer.

“Just stay with me?” Connor looked up at him, eyes thick-lidded but hopeful, and Becker felt his stomach lurch, not unlike the first moments of free fall. “Only I can't sleep so well by myself anymore,” Connor continued, glancing down at their feet. “I know how that sounds, right, I know it's so idiotic, and I know I'm asking a lot, I do - but I just need to feel someone there. In the dark. It's so quiet, inside at night.”

How was Becker supposed to say no after that? He nodded resignedly, _all right_ , and let Connor lead him to his own bed. As often as such thoughts might have occupied his mind, they had never been accompanied by the clause that he lie there, inches away from Connor in the dark, and do absolutely nothing. Just sleep.

Survival training, he thought, should include a unit on human relationships.

Becker thought he'd never fall asleep, not once Connor had shucked off his jeans and crawled under the blankets in his boxers. He followed suit, folding his cargos and laying them on a chair already burdened with a pile of crisply folded shirts. A noise from behind him made him turn around, his hand on the switch to kill the lamp. “What?”

“Boxer briefs,” Connor chuckled. “I was right. Abby and I took bets, once.” Becker would have scolded him, if he could have untangled his tongue from shock. Besides, Connor looked embarrassed enough for the both of them. “Never figured either of us would find out, though,” he mused, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile.

Becker cut the light and sat down, slowly shaking his head. “Oh come on,” Connor wheedled. “You can't dress like that and – and look like that, and not set folks to talking. The ARC's always been sort of a fishtank.”

“Look like _what_ , exactly?” Becker pried, lying down on his side to face Connor. He tugged the blankets up nearly to his chin, suddenly absurdly self-conscious.

Connor's only answer was a slow smile that redefined the contours of his face while sending a low, curling warmth through Becker's stomach. It was dark, but not too dark to see, not this close, and Becker hoped Connor couldn't see the color he could feel burning his cheeks. “Goodnight, Connor,” he said quietly, but firmly, knowing Connor would hear the smile in the voice.

Connor laughed, but only a little. “Sweet dreams.”

 

Becker awoke curled around something warm, and vaguely person-shaped.  _Oh,_ he thought, after a moment's examination.  _I'm still dreaming. Must be._ He wrapped his arm more tightly around the warm body beside him, snuggling closer.  _Might as well enjoy it, while it lasts._ The body beside him made a soft, pleased noise and rolled over in his arms, pressing his face to Becker's chest. 

_Of course it's Connor_ , Becker thought. _When wasn't it Connor?_

The sky through the window had just begun to lighten with the first hints of approaching dawn. Connor's knee pressed forward against his thighs and their legs tangled together comfortably beneath the blanket. Becker could feel Connor's breath against his skin, hot and ticklish. He slid his hand slowly up Connor's spine, relishing the sharp intake of breath it provoked in response. He let his fingers linger in Connor's hair, stroking softly.

Connor's lips brushed his neck, gently but possessively and Becker's fingers, still caught in his hair, curled tight into a fist. Connor made a sound as his hair was pulled, his mouth opening wider across Becker's skin. He shifted his hips, and Becker felt the outline of Connor's erection pressing through his boxers, heavy and warm. He was half convinced it was still a dream, until Connor's tongue flicked out, tracing a line of muscle beneath the skin and sending every neuron in his body into overdrive. He rolled Connor onto his back before he could react, grabbed his arms and pinned them over his head against the pillows. He was fairly certain he'd meant to give himself a moment to think about the situation, but that ship had clearly already left port.

“This is a bad idea,” Connor gasped, cheeks flushed, pupils wide open, staring up at Becker as if he'd never wanted anything more in his life.

“Terrible,” Becker agreed, leaning down to kiss him. He moved slowly, purposefully, dragging Connor's lower lip between his teeth until he shuddered and moaned against Becker's mouth.

“It's – oh, _damn_ – gonna make working together just - dead awkward,” Connor continued, struggling to catch his breath between fits of slightly hysterical giggles.

“Absolutely impossible.” Becker brushed Connor's cheek with his nose on his way to nibble at his earlobe.

“Unless - “ Connor broke off into incoherence after only a single word, Becker's hand sliding down from his wrists to slip beneath his t-shirt and stroke the skin at his waist.

“Unless?” Becker teased, kissing his way along Connor's jawline, made rough with the hint of stubble.

“We just keep at it.” Connor suggested, voice gone hoarse and ragged. “Nngh - you know, on a - a regular basis-like.” Becker's hand stilled it's progress, having just tucked beneath the waistband of Connor's boxers. Connor squirmed a little, and Becker shifted his weight to hold him still, watching.

A multitude of possible responses ran through his mind, which - considering the situation, Becker thought it rather remarkable his mind could process anything at all. _You'd better be sure you mean that_ topped the list, but was ultimately discarded. This was – it could be anything to Connor. The better-be-sure-I'm-really-over-her hook-up. The one-off. The rebound. It didn't have to mean anything at all.

Becker knew exactly what it was to him, but after all this time of holding it close and locking it away, he couldn't quite bear to put a name to it. Not until he was damn sure it wouldn't up and vanish, just so much smoke.

“I'll take it under advisement,” he said, brushing a sweat-damp patch of hair back from Connor's face. He'd been trying for sly, suggestive, even, but the words sounded terrifyingly earnest on his lips. Connor smiled at him, a wry, crooked little grin that knew far too much and he kissed it away, kissed him until they were both breathless and desperate and wild.

He wasn't sure where Connor's shirt (or his briefs) had ended up, but he was kissing his way down Connor's chest, fingers stroking his ribs, sliding beneath his frame to dig into his back. He teased the shallow indentations beneath the elastic band on his shorts with his tongue, slipping the fabric over Connor's hips and down to his feet. He paused for a moment, taking in the sight of Connor's erection, flushed and swollen and swaying slightly back and forth. Becker glanced back up toward the headboard where Connor watched him, eyes wide, his jaw slack. Connor swallowed hard as Becker ducked his head and traced the underside of his cock with his mouth, sliding his tongue slowly from root to tip. He slipped his lips over the head, sucking gently while his tongue probed the slit. Connor arched his hips against him and Becker took the shaft in hand, stroking quickly, roughly.

He looked towards Connor, eager to see the reaction his efforts had provoked, and was rewarded. Connor lay against the pillows like some sort of pornographic saint, head thrown back, mouth hanging open and loose somewhere between agony and ecstasy and Becker was certain he'd never been this hard in his entire life. He moved one hand from where it pressed against Connor's hip, holding him down, and lightly teased at his balls, tugging and rolling them in his palm. Connor's hips stuttered, and Becker could feel his release building as Connor's cock twitched against his mouth. His hand traveled back, slid into the cleft of Connor's ass and stroked slow circles around his entrance, teasing, teasing.

Connor cried out, hips jerking up once, twice, and Becker swallowed down the length of his cock. He sucked gently at first, then harder, working at it with his tongue, his hand, the barest scrape of teeth across the head – until Connor's orgasm exploded in his mouth and he savored the taste. He stroked Connor through it, lapping up the remaining mess until Connor collapsed against the bed, flushed and exhausted.

“Hilary,” he moaned, and Becker glanced up in surprise, wiping his mouth against the back of his hand. He climbed up Connor's body to lie next to him, resting his head in the hollow of his shoulder. He hooked one leg around Connor's, his body still on fire and desperate for skin to skin contact.

“No one calls me that,” Becker murmured, his fingers brushing lightly, rhythmically across Connor's chest.

“I call you that,” Connor replied, more of a sigh than a statement, the words riding out on his breath.

Becker smiled, pressing a kiss to Connor's throat. “I suppose that's all right, then. Only for you, though.”

Connor traced a slow, winding path down Becker's spine with one fingertip, and he shivered, arching against Connor's side. “You're damn right it's only me,” Connor confirmed, planting a fierce kiss on the top of Becker's head. Becker looked up before he could check the movement, a lost, heedless sort of longing plain in his expression.

“Please tell me you mean that,” he asked, voice tuned low and reckless. “Only I don't think I can keep on like we have been, not after this, if you're – if this was just -” Becker bit down on his lip to stop the flow of words, pressing his face against Connor's chest. He was too horny, too _wrecked_ , to be having any sort of conversation, least of all this one. “Oh, _fuck all._ ”

Connor shifted against him, burrowing deeper into the pillows as he turned onto his side. His hand wrapped around Becker's waist, pulling and holding him close. Becker drew in a quick breath as Connor's hipbone brushed against his cock, still hard up and extremely responsive. “I'm not fooling around,” Connor told him, his hand moving in slow circles at the base of Becker's spine. “I'm just not built like that, I reckon.”

Becker's eyes fell shut, and he pressed forward, sliding against a warm groove of skin. A soft moan escaped his lips as Connor's left arm wrapped around his shoulders, fingers tangling in his hair. He licked at Connor's throat, sucking gently enough to not leave a mark and then scraping his teeth across the sensitized skin. Connor bared his throat to Becker's efforts, canting his hips forward against Becker's thrusts.

“You never asked me why Abby and I called it quits, you know,” Connor said, voice gone husky with recent release and renewed desire. Connor's voice in his ear was every sort of turn on, but right now? Becker really didn't want to hear a damn thing about Abby Maitland. Connor's hand moved up and down his back, stroking with a fierce rhythm and Becker couldn't hold back a moan. “It worked out fine, you know, when it was just the two of us, but back here –“

“Connor, please -”

“Back here, see, there was you.” Becker felt the world shudder and grind to a halt around them as he struggled to process Connor's statement. His hips continued moving of their own accord, bringing him closer and closer to the brink. Connor drew his hand across his waist, worked it down between them and the world rocketed back to full speed as he wrapped his fingers around Becker's cock. With each short, simple stroke, Connor gently took him apart.

“Yeah, that's it,” Connor murmured, his lips pressed to Becker's ear. “Just like that. Let it out, c'mon, you can let it all go for me, I've got you.” Something uncoiled in Becker like a spring, and he shook and stuttered through the bends. He dug his fingers into Connor's back, thrusting up into his grip again and again and again. “I've got you,” Connor whispered, and the climax crashed through him like a wave of searing, white-hot light to leave him stranded at the breakers.

He remembered how to breathe, and the world filled in with color. Sound was next, the echo of Connor's heart pounding next to him in the grey morning air. Connor pulled his hand away, dripping with spunk, and he rubbed it across Becker's shoulder to leave a rapidly cooling trail down his back. Becker laughed, a short, hoarse bark and Connor responded in kind. He cupped Connor's face in his hands, drawing him down for a slow, lingering kiss.

“Mm, so I think,” Connor suggested when Becker pulled back long enough to breathe. “I think we should call out sick.” Becker grinned, resting his head on Connor's shoulder.

“What, both of us?” he asked, licking playfully at a salty drop of sweat on Connor's neck. “I suppose we can't call out 'properly fucked,' but that's as good as.”

Connor burst out laughing at that. “Oh, god, can you imagine Lester's face?”

“Not what I wanted to think about right now, Connor,” Becker groaned, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

“Guess I sorta killed the mood with that one, eh?” Connor said, sheepishly. “Fine then, what would you rather think about?”

“Hmm,” Becker mused. _You_ , he thought. _You, here, with me, and how it's not a dream, not anymore, and what I can do to make you stay, all the things I would do -_ “A shower,” he said aloud, “for starters. And definitely some coffee.”

“Those mean getting out of bed,” Connor complained.

“Briefly,” Becker admitted, tucking Connor's hair behind his ear. “Sacrifices must be made.”

Not long after, with the smell of fresh coffee wafting in from the kitchen, Connor discovered that Becker's shower was, in fact, large enough for two, and the pot was nearly cold by the time either of them got round to it. The office scuttlebutt never amounted to much beyond a curt 'Well, it's about  _time_ ,' from Jess and general, good-natured ribbing from the security teams. Lester seemed as loathe to acknowledge any change between them as he had been to officiate at Jenny Lewis' nuptials, which Becker supposed meant he was happy for them. As happy as Lester ever was about anything that didn't involve aged scotch or a good, public dressing down.

He came home late one night to find a single picture hung on the wall, the frame uneven and listing slightly to the left. The two subjects ignored the camera, caught in a moment of unguarded laughter. Becker remembered that day: a wild goose chase out to a farmstead plagued by a perfectly ordinary, if overgrown, hog. Connor had given the animal chase and tumbled headlong over a root in the field. Becker had roared with laughter, stopping to help him up, and before long they were both lost to fits of it, doubled over, arms round one another for support. They looked so young.

Sarah must have taken the photo, he thought, or Quinn, to use as blackmail. Connor sneaked up behind him in the hallway, wrapping his arms around Becker's waist as he replaced the photo on the wall. He left it a bit crooked, and Connor squeezed him round the middle. “Was it worth it, then,” Connor asked quietly and a bit nervously, leaning his head against his shoulder. “All that time waiting for me to come to my senses?”

Becker turned around, nudging Connor gently against the opposite wall and kissed him soundly. Repeatedly. A little desperately. “Every moment,” he answered, and Connor smiled.


End file.
